I was having yet another What To Make For Dinner conversation with a friendly acquaintance when I mentioned that I really wanted to make biscuits to go with that night's chili but didn't have time so I'd probably make beer bread instead. At this she looked at me as if I had just told her I would feed my kids braised glass for dinner.
"You make beer bread?" she asked, "How? Isn't that worse than making biscuits?" She shuddered and added a comment on her devotion to whack-'em tubes of crescent rolls.
There may well be a hard way to make beer bread but if there is I don't know about it. The way my mom taught me is crazy easy (strangely, although she gave me the recipe and method I use - which Google shows as the most common - I have no memory of her ever making a loaf). Once I told my pal how to do it, her eyes brightened and she said she'd make some just as soon as she could get her hands on some self-rising flour, that not being the kind of thing that many of us keep around. Seems she got the idea after having some beer bread fondue at a local pub that it was hard to make, required lots of tedious kneading and resting as so many breads do and that the process is just generally harder than whacking a tube of prefab rolls.
Not so. Beer bread is more of a quick bread than anything else, and there's no kneading required. In fact, I'd venture to say that in a reasonably well-ordered kitchen, whipping up a loaf of beer bread might well be just as fast or even more so than whacking and separating refigerator rolls.
For crazy easy beer bread, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Mix well three cups of self-rising flour, three tablespoons of white sugar and 12 oz. of beer (canned or bottled, whatever type you like - cheap beer makes just as good a bread as expensive, but every beer adds a distinct flavor, we prefer lighter beers for bread). Pat the sticky dough into an oiled or sprayed loaf pan and bake for one hour. Allow to cool a spell before cutting. You can use regular flour, too, but add three teaspoons baking powder and a teaspoon and a half of salt - things that self-rising flour already includes. Since a five pound bag of self-rising is fairly inexpensive and makes several loaves, I don't bother with the more complicated version. As always, your mileage may vary, blah, blah, blah.
Sure, the bread must bake for an hour but that's an hour when you can be off doing something else and not standing by the stove or watching the clock for kneading intervals. Since not being subject to any kind of drudgery is a key to enjoying the cooking process, I don't think the ability to ignore the bread for a whole hour can be over-regarded. If you have leftover, let it harden over night and crunch it up to make breadcrumbs to coat tomorrow night's chicken breasts (which you'll put out to thaw tonight) and there is another evening's dinner already planned and ready to go.
So, if you just celebrated Thanksgiving, did you have a nice holiday?
If you didn't, did you have a nice Thursday?
The kids, their au pair and I arrived home Thursday night after nearly a week away visiting relatives in more northern locales. We enjoyed snow flurries, learning a Russian card game called Durac, eating too much coffee cake and TimBits, and hearing about my 80 year-old grandmother's new boyfriend. It was a lovely vacation in every respect.
Still, it's nice to be home. I missed my own bed and my own kitchen, however ill-equipped it is. And after Brainiac told me about the holes he cut in the ceiling above my desk (ostensibly to fix a leak from the bathtub above but he sounded as if he enjoyed making those holes so much that I'm not at all convinced it took him the three tries he claims it did to find the leak - I think he just wanted to cut more holes in the ceiling) I knew that much work would be required to put the house to some level of order for the upcoming holidays.
So with post-trip laundry underway, a kitchen enhancement project about to start, boxes of all sizes siting about waiting for me to unpack their festive contents, four pounds of butter thawing for the first batches of Christmas cookies (chocolate chip, crinkles and probably pizzelles since I have a lot of eggs on hand) and a glass of wine at my side as I type I feel very ready for Advent.
If you didn't, did you have a nice Thursday?
The kids, their au pair and I arrived home Thursday night after nearly a week away visiting relatives in more northern locales. We enjoyed snow flurries, learning a Russian card game called Durac, eating too much coffee cake and TimBits, and hearing about my 80 year-old grandmother's new boyfriend. It was a lovely vacation in every respect.
Still, it's nice to be home. I missed my own bed and my own kitchen, however ill-equipped it is. And after Brainiac told me about the holes he cut in the ceiling above my desk (ostensibly to fix a leak from the bathtub above but he sounded as if he enjoyed making those holes so much that I'm not at all convinced it took him the three tries he claims it did to find the leak - I think he just wanted to cut more holes in the ceiling) I knew that much work would be required to put the house to some level of order for the upcoming holidays.
So with post-trip laundry underway, a kitchen enhancement project about to start, boxes of all sizes siting about waiting for me to unpack their festive contents, four pounds of butter thawing for the first batches of Christmas cookies (chocolate chip, crinkles and probably pizzelles since I have a lot of eggs on hand) and a glass of wine at my side as I type I feel very ready for Advent.
Among the many, uh, charms of being involved with the public school machine in Pennsylvania is the requirement that every child in certain grades (K through fourth now, expanding each year by adding a grade until every grade is included) has a BMI measurement, which is sent home to parents along with lots of helpful advice about what to do should one's child's BMI be deemed not quite right. This program, called the PA Growth Screening Program, is a joint effort of the Pennsylvania Departments of Health and Education.
At first blush, this sounds no different than other screenings a child might receive in school (remember visiting the nurse's office for that annual scoliosis finger-down-the-back check?). And, indeed, that's exactly how the program is being marketed - no different than, say, a vision or hearing assessment or other useful tool for parents to use in evaluating their child's health.
From my perspective, this is a far cry from a vision or hearing evaluation. A very far cry.
The program literature includes boilerplate letters to parents, administrators and staff outlining the procedures and what will happen after the BMI measurements have been obtained. While the literature includes areas where school nurses may detail the ways in which the school and district are endeavoring to create healthier environments for kids - and, indeed, offers suggestions to nurses of ideas they might pursue in this regard - the program itself is not designed to offer solutions. So it's entirely possible that parents may recieve a letter that reads something along the lines of "Hey, your kids' BMI is XX. Good luck with that!"
So we have this measurement sent to parents, with the explanation that false readings are possible and that it should be discussed with the family physician and included alongside are all the ways that the school district is going to help keep/get the child healthy/-ier (one hopes, but maybe/maybe not on this point). The thing is, if I actually have a physician (assumed by the literature), why do I need this? If I am already required to submit a physical form filled out for each child by that same physician as a requirement of enrollment, what is this duplicative screening meaning to accomplish?
I also wonder the point of such a screening in an environment where children recieve 15 minutes a day per lunch (as is the case at my neighborhood elementary school), a 10 minute recess if they're lucky, and gym class once every six days. If the message of the Growth Screening Program is to encourage healthy eating and activity, isn't that diluted somewhat by the day-to-day message kids receive while actually at school? On the one hand, parents may learn that their son or daughter is over-/underweight but why bother to tell them what they likely already know when they have no control over a schedule that teaches those same children to either shove their food down their throats as quickly as possible just to finish or that they couldn't possibly finish so why bother eating when you can just go to the library and get something done?
I'm also troubled by the program's lack of attention to common root causes of both under- and overweight. Among the suggestions that school nurses ask the local YMCA what programs might be available for overweight kids and find sports programs to recommend there is no attention paid to helping families who need assistance in obtaining affordable healthy food, finding living situations that include kitchen facilities in which to cook and store said healthy food, or providing support for families when kids themselves are responsible for preparing their own meals because mom and dad are working long hours or otherwise aren't home (by whether by choice or necessity). Not to mention all the other issues that go into a family's food environment - maybe mom will only eat yogurt and lettuce or dad feels that a meal without meat is like a day without sunshine, etc. Or the prevailing model of the upwardly mobile, achievement-oriented family in which everyone is off accomplishing and no one is eating so much as a single meal together in any given week. Or that the very schools that are being required to conduct the screenings offer sports programs - hey! healthy activity! - that require kids to be away from their own family tables four or five nights a week. Or that even if we fixed all of what I see as our society's really weird attitudes toward food, we still won't teach people how to cook. (Insert your own neurosis here.)
(ETA: On the drive to pick the Boy up from school just after posting this I realized that today is the school's Market Day pick up. Market Day products are sold as a PTA fundraiser and the order/pick-up cycle runs monthly. Among the plain frozen veggies on offer are frozen french toast sticks, tacquitos, cheesesteak "kits" and bagel pizzas. And this month moms - there's that mom being responsible for feeding people thing again - were encouraged to by as many pies as possible since the company offered an extra $1 per pie profit to the school. Not all that compatible with a BMI obsession, you say? Yeah, I say, too.)
At the end of the day, this feels to me like just another message from someone with grant money to spend that parents aren't doing their job right. It's an easy position to take, after all, since all you have to do is declare that someone's son or daughter isn't healthy and, gee, they'd really better do something about it, when you aren't tasked with or even interested in offering concrete assistance or solutions. At least a vision or hearing test comes with some way to deal with the problem.
I don't see an opt-out for parents who do not wish their children to participate in the Growth Screening Program. So I plan on one of my own - an unopened letter, filed directly in the compost heap.
At first blush, this sounds no different than other screenings a child might receive in school (remember visiting the nurse's office for that annual scoliosis finger-down-the-back check?). And, indeed, that's exactly how the program is being marketed - no different than, say, a vision or hearing assessment or other useful tool for parents to use in evaluating their child's health.
From my perspective, this is a far cry from a vision or hearing evaluation. A very far cry.
The program literature includes boilerplate letters to parents, administrators and staff outlining the procedures and what will happen after the BMI measurements have been obtained. While the literature includes areas where school nurses may detail the ways in which the school and district are endeavoring to create healthier environments for kids - and, indeed, offers suggestions to nurses of ideas they might pursue in this regard - the program itself is not designed to offer solutions. So it's entirely possible that parents may recieve a letter that reads something along the lines of "Hey, your kids' BMI is XX. Good luck with that!"
So we have this measurement sent to parents, with the explanation that false readings are possible and that it should be discussed with the family physician and included alongside are all the ways that the school district is going to help keep/get the child healthy/-ier (one hopes, but maybe/maybe not on this point). The thing is, if I actually have a physician (assumed by the literature), why do I need this? If I am already required to submit a physical form filled out for each child by that same physician as a requirement of enrollment, what is this duplicative screening meaning to accomplish?
I also wonder the point of such a screening in an environment where children recieve 15 minutes a day per lunch (as is the case at my neighborhood elementary school), a 10 minute recess if they're lucky, and gym class once every six days. If the message of the Growth Screening Program is to encourage healthy eating and activity, isn't that diluted somewhat by the day-to-day message kids receive while actually at school? On the one hand, parents may learn that their son or daughter is over-/underweight but why bother to tell them what they likely already know when they have no control over a schedule that teaches those same children to either shove their food down their throats as quickly as possible just to finish or that they couldn't possibly finish so why bother eating when you can just go to the library and get something done?
I'm also troubled by the program's lack of attention to common root causes of both under- and overweight. Among the suggestions that school nurses ask the local YMCA what programs might be available for overweight kids and find sports programs to recommend there is no attention paid to helping families who need assistance in obtaining affordable healthy food, finding living situations that include kitchen facilities in which to cook and store said healthy food, or providing support for families when kids themselves are responsible for preparing their own meals because mom and dad are working long hours or otherwise aren't home (by whether by choice or necessity). Not to mention all the other issues that go into a family's food environment - maybe mom will only eat yogurt and lettuce or dad feels that a meal without meat is like a day without sunshine, etc. Or the prevailing model of the upwardly mobile, achievement-oriented family in which everyone is off accomplishing and no one is eating so much as a single meal together in any given week. Or that the very schools that are being required to conduct the screenings offer sports programs - hey! healthy activity! - that require kids to be away from their own family tables four or five nights a week. Or that even if we fixed all of what I see as our society's really weird attitudes toward food, we still won't teach people how to cook. (Insert your own neurosis here.)
(ETA: On the drive to pick the Boy up from school just after posting this I realized that today is the school's Market Day pick up. Market Day products are sold as a PTA fundraiser and the order/pick-up cycle runs monthly. Among the plain frozen veggies on offer are frozen french toast sticks, tacquitos, cheesesteak "kits" and bagel pizzas. And this month moms - there's that mom being responsible for feeding people thing again - were encouraged to by as many pies as possible since the company offered an extra $1 per pie profit to the school. Not all that compatible with a BMI obsession, you say? Yeah, I say, too.)
At the end of the day, this feels to me like just another message from someone with grant money to spend that parents aren't doing their job right. It's an easy position to take, after all, since all you have to do is declare that someone's son or daughter isn't healthy and, gee, they'd really better do something about it, when you aren't tasked with or even interested in offering concrete assistance or solutions. At least a vision or hearing test comes with some way to deal with the problem.
I don't see an opt-out for parents who do not wish their children to participate in the Growth Screening Program. So I plan on one of my own - an unopened letter, filed directly in the compost heap.
Many thanks for the thoughtful commments to my last post. In addition to those posted here I recieved several e-mails and everyone who shared their thoughts has given us much to consider. With more thinking time, I'll be posting a follow-up - one that will address the crazy privilege involved in even having such a problem. Of course, the utter ridiculousness associated with a white, affluent, Christian family pondering what might happen if they stepped outside the norm for a spell, well, let's just say that having read my last post I'm beginning to understand why my friends and relations are sick to death of the subject.
Now then. A bit less navel-gazing is in order, I think. (After wrote this I thought, "What is a blog for, but navel-gazing? If I stopped writing about my preoccupations, what on earth would I write? Short stories?" No. I have no narrative sense to speak of, so as long as I'm here I supposed I ought to make peace with the fact that it's all navel-gazing, all time. Carrying on...)
Among the many pumpkins I picked up for processing into plain puree and pumpkin butter was one lovely specimen, pale orangish with green and yellow stripes. I'd never seen one like it and enthusiastically agreed to put it on our cart when the kids found it nestled among the more standard pie-types where it was the only one of its kind. The pumpkin sat on the kitchen table for more than two months before I was able to do something with it and, once I eventually did, found that inside, too, it was unlike any of the other pumpkins we bought. For one thing, the flesh was almost yellow and had a soft, delicate feel. It pureed beautifully and I am very curious as to how it will work in baking or as a base for a mousse or soup.
And the seeds (which are really what this post is about)! The seeds were green! Oh, I'd seen the hull-less* pepitas in stores and called for in recipes but to actually open a pumpkin and find them is another matter entirely. Their discovery reminded me immediately of a great mole I once had made of ground roasted seeds along with tomatillas - which you know how much I love - and peppers. It's not often I get the urge to make a mole, but with the principle ingredient of pipián (also known as mole verde) staring me right in the face in my very own kitchen, what else could I have done?
So I set about looking online for recipes and procuring the remaining ingredients, sticking to my tried-and-true method of following no one recipe in particular. The result was delicious, although not quite what I remembered of that long-ago dish and not at all what I was shooting for this time. Still, I think the recipe is worth noting, not only for sharing (second only to navel-gazing as a reason to blog) but also so the next time I find myself face to face with an unexpected bounty of pepitas I'm ready. So, to make my version (very low on the authenticity scale) of pipián:
Place one cup of dry green, hull-less pumpkin seeds in a small skillet over low heat. Roast, stirring constantly, for about five minutes and set aside to cool. In the meantime, place three cups of torn green romain lettuce in a food processor. Add in one medium onion, quartered, three large cloves of garlic, one cup of loosely packed cilantro leaves and two small cans of salsa verde tomatilla salsa (or one cup of home-canned). Pulse to process until the onions and lettuce are well-chopped and the mixture is uniformly smooth. Remove to a saucepan and cook over medium heat, adding 1/2 cup chicken broth very slowly to incorporate. Using a clean grinder, mini-chopper or knife, very finely chop the roasted seeds until they are almost a paste and add to the warming saucepan, stirring well to incorporate. Cook until heated through (the sauce may begin to brown, this is o.k.). Use as a cooking marinade for roasting meats (I used chicken) or sauteeing meats and/or vegetables. It's also very good just eaten out of the pan with a spoon, swooning because something so unexpected has resulted yet again in a very delicious experiment.
Now then. A bit less navel-gazing is in order, I think. (After wrote this I thought, "What is a blog for, but navel-gazing? If I stopped writing about my preoccupations, what on earth would I write? Short stories?" No. I have no narrative sense to speak of, so as long as I'm here I supposed I ought to make peace with the fact that it's all navel-gazing, all time. Carrying on...)
Among the many pumpkins I picked up for processing into plain puree and pumpkin butter was one lovely specimen, pale orangish with green and yellow stripes. I'd never seen one like it and enthusiastically agreed to put it on our cart when the kids found it nestled among the more standard pie-types where it was the only one of its kind. The pumpkin sat on the kitchen table for more than two months before I was able to do something with it and, once I eventually did, found that inside, too, it was unlike any of the other pumpkins we bought. For one thing, the flesh was almost yellow and had a soft, delicate feel. It pureed beautifully and I am very curious as to how it will work in baking or as a base for a mousse or soup.
And the seeds (which are really what this post is about)! The seeds were green! Oh, I'd seen the hull-less* pepitas in stores and called for in recipes but to actually open a pumpkin and find them is another matter entirely. Their discovery reminded me immediately of a great mole I once had made of ground roasted seeds along with tomatillas - which you know how much I love - and peppers. It's not often I get the urge to make a mole, but with the principle ingredient of pipián (also known as mole verde) staring me right in the face in my very own kitchen, what else could I have done?
So I set about looking online for recipes and procuring the remaining ingredients, sticking to my tried-and-true method of following no one recipe in particular. The result was delicious, although not quite what I remembered of that long-ago dish and not at all what I was shooting for this time. Still, I think the recipe is worth noting, not only for sharing (second only to navel-gazing as a reason to blog) but also so the next time I find myself face to face with an unexpected bounty of pepitas I'm ready. So, to make my version (very low on the authenticity scale) of pipián:
Place one cup of dry green, hull-less pumpkin seeds in a small skillet over low heat. Roast, stirring constantly, for about five minutes and set aside to cool. In the meantime, place three cups of torn green romain lettuce in a food processor. Add in one medium onion, quartered, three large cloves of garlic, one cup of loosely packed cilantro leaves and two small cans of salsa verde tomatilla salsa (or one cup of home-canned). Pulse to process until the onions and lettuce are well-chopped and the mixture is uniformly smooth. Remove to a saucepan and cook over medium heat, adding 1/2 cup chicken broth very slowly to incorporate. Using a clean grinder, mini-chopper or knife, very finely chop the roasted seeds until they are almost a paste and add to the warming saucepan, stirring well to incorporate. Cook until heated through (the sauce may begin to brown, this is o.k.). Use as a cooking marinade for roasting meats (I used chicken) or sauteeing meats and/or vegetables. It's also very good just eaten out of the pan with a spoon, swooning because something so unexpected has resulted yet again in a very delicious experiment.
I've never been one for rebellion. I've also never been one for going-along-to-get-along. My position on most things is that to the extent what I do has no bearing on another, I don't expect comment. I have a pretty strong internal locus of control and don't require much in the way of others' approval. Luckily, Brainiac shares my feelings on the subject of, as he says, the coloring-within-the-lines thing and so we experience very little conflict between us on issues about whether or not we should do or not do X because everyone else does it or doesn't do it.
Does this make sense? What I mean is that we're pretty good at making decisions about stuff on the basis of whether or not it's right for us without worrying if it's not done, too alternative, too mainstream or too whatever. This is not to say that we don't have a sense of community responsibility, just that we'd rather bring our garbage cans in after trash day because it's a desirable thing to do, not because the home owners' association handbook says we must, you know?
There's one issue, though, that is bringing us up short in terms of what is expected versus what we believe to be the best choice for us and it's proving to be harder to manage the more we discuss it, rather than our conversations having an illuminating effect. Real-life friends and relations are sick to death of hearing us talk about it and, for reasons that will become obvious, subject-matter experts cannot be called upon for their objective views. As we have hit a standstill regarding this very large elephant in the room (see it there over in the corner? wearing a lampshade? and chaps?) Brainiac suggested that I take it to the blog, so here I am.
The Boy Wonder is enrolled in a half-day (half-day is a euphamism for 2.5 hours) Kindergarten program at our highly regarded elementary school. He wanted to go on the grounds that it was a guaranteed daily playdate with two of his buddies and has, for the most part, been positive about the experience. Reports back from the classroom (from teachers and other moms) indicate that he is happy and doing well.
But (you knew it was coming, right?) Brainiac and I aren't thrilled with what he's actually doing, school-wise. We're not all in with the Give 'Em Phonics in Preschool crowd or anything, but we've got a kid who started reading (C-A-T cat, S-A-T sat, M-A-T mat) before his fourth birthday and is now doing pretty well with independent reading, who is learning (at his request) how to add double and triple digit numbers, and who thinks that Beowulf is, like, the greatest story ever and read it again Mom! Please understand, I'm not making claims to giftedness or genius or anything like that, merely that he's had the benefit of two fairly geeky parents who spent a loooooong time in school and who have had the time and inclination to bring him and his sister along for the ride.
The activities he's toting home from school bring me up a little short in that I was expecting to have to defend him from too much academics (haven't we all heard that "kindergarten is the new first grade") and instead I'm in the position explaining to him why he's coloring in a picture of the number thirty as part of his math instruction. "Mommy," he said to me not long ago, "I think the plan is that we're going to play now so that we'll have time to learn later in the year."
The school has acknowledged that he is ahead of the curriculum for reading and math and has been quite frank in their plans to do nothing about it. They will not differentiate within the classroom, they will not accelerate, they will not enrich, they will not explain why.
My mother-in-law, a retired second-grade teacher, has pointed out that the kids on either end of the reading and math bell curves tend to join the kids at the top sometime around second grade and has suggested that this may be the basis for the school's disinterest in actually teaching the Boy. Such a norming may be a pedagogical certainty but I think it's actually irrelevant as an explanation - why is it a better educational option to let a kid sit around doing nothing for as long as two years waiting for his skill level to be at the median as opposed to reaching him where he is at the moment? It's clear to us that the Boy is squarely in a gray area where he is one of those kids who can be safely left alone, requiring little attention of any kind. These kids, if they're lucky, reach that top of the bell curve point without hating school as a boring, pointless environment. If they're unlucky, they reach that point with the understanding that being smart and motivated gets you nothing but hassle and make-work. Now there's a lesson I bet isn't in the formal curriculum.
Brainiac and I find this situation sad, angry-making and utterly unacceptable. For his part, the Boy is a little confused as to why he spends his afternoons cutting triangles, learning songs about Mr. M and having his questions about how the intercom system works go unanswered, although he enjoys that it all happens in such a bright and happy environment. He's asked, though, if we could find him another school for next year. "Maybe one that has more science." he suggests.
So. What to do? We're looking at private schools ($15K a year for first grade! and a first grade that's not really better than what we've got), magnet schools and homeschooling. Homeschooling seems to be the best answer, for us and for the Boy. We've essentially been homeschooling him from that moment we realized in the summer before he turned four that he was reading street signs and have continued to respond to his interests with all kinds of books, outings, experiments and activities. He has always responded well and enthusiastically to educational and informative stimuli wherever he finds it.
But man, homeschooling is coloring waaaaaay outside the lines. I have no fear of our ability to provide an excellent and thorough education for our children, none at all. I think, though, that homeschooling comes right up against my ability to do more or less what pleases me, sticks its toe on the line of not caring what people think and dissolving into tears over same and gives me a raspberry. It's one thing to choose a "love me, love my choices" sort of life for oneself but it's quite another to choose it for one's child.
You know, if the Boy Wonder were developing an enthusiasm for some unhealthy thing - a drug, maybe, or not eating enough, I'd move heaven and earth and spend every cent available to me to support him in healing. Why is it so hard to kick what I see as another unhealthy habit - this particular school and perhaps school in general - because it's "what people do". Why am I so afraid to be different about this, to take the plunge, to proclaim loud and proud "we are homeschoolers" when about so many other things in my life I do what I do with no thought or concern as to the general response?
Why is this different?
Does this make sense? What I mean is that we're pretty good at making decisions about stuff on the basis of whether or not it's right for us without worrying if it's not done, too alternative, too mainstream or too whatever. This is not to say that we don't have a sense of community responsibility, just that we'd rather bring our garbage cans in after trash day because it's a desirable thing to do, not because the home owners' association handbook says we must, you know?
There's one issue, though, that is bringing us up short in terms of what is expected versus what we believe to be the best choice for us and it's proving to be harder to manage the more we discuss it, rather than our conversations having an illuminating effect. Real-life friends and relations are sick to death of hearing us talk about it and, for reasons that will become obvious, subject-matter experts cannot be called upon for their objective views. As we have hit a standstill regarding this very large elephant in the room (see it there over in the corner? wearing a lampshade? and chaps?) Brainiac suggested that I take it to the blog, so here I am.
The Boy Wonder is enrolled in a half-day (half-day is a euphamism for 2.5 hours) Kindergarten program at our highly regarded elementary school. He wanted to go on the grounds that it was a guaranteed daily playdate with two of his buddies and has, for the most part, been positive about the experience. Reports back from the classroom (from teachers and other moms) indicate that he is happy and doing well.
But (you knew it was coming, right?) Brainiac and I aren't thrilled with what he's actually doing, school-wise. We're not all in with the Give 'Em Phonics in Preschool crowd or anything, but we've got a kid who started reading (C-A-T cat, S-A-T sat, M-A-T mat) before his fourth birthday and is now doing pretty well with independent reading, who is learning (at his request) how to add double and triple digit numbers, and who thinks that Beowulf is, like, the greatest story ever and read it again Mom! Please understand, I'm not making claims to giftedness or genius or anything like that, merely that he's had the benefit of two fairly geeky parents who spent a loooooong time in school and who have had the time and inclination to bring him and his sister along for the ride.
The activities he's toting home from school bring me up a little short in that I was expecting to have to defend him from too much academics (haven't we all heard that "kindergarten is the new first grade") and instead I'm in the position explaining to him why he's coloring in a picture of the number thirty as part of his math instruction. "Mommy," he said to me not long ago, "I think the plan is that we're going to play now so that we'll have time to learn later in the year."
The school has acknowledged that he is ahead of the curriculum for reading and math and has been quite frank in their plans to do nothing about it. They will not differentiate within the classroom, they will not accelerate, they will not enrich, they will not explain why.
My mother-in-law, a retired second-grade teacher, has pointed out that the kids on either end of the reading and math bell curves tend to join the kids at the top sometime around second grade and has suggested that this may be the basis for the school's disinterest in actually teaching the Boy. Such a norming may be a pedagogical certainty but I think it's actually irrelevant as an explanation - why is it a better educational option to let a kid sit around doing nothing for as long as two years waiting for his skill level to be at the median as opposed to reaching him where he is at the moment? It's clear to us that the Boy is squarely in a gray area where he is one of those kids who can be safely left alone, requiring little attention of any kind. These kids, if they're lucky, reach that top of the bell curve point without hating school as a boring, pointless environment. If they're unlucky, they reach that point with the understanding that being smart and motivated gets you nothing but hassle and make-work. Now there's a lesson I bet isn't in the formal curriculum.
Brainiac and I find this situation sad, angry-making and utterly unacceptable. For his part, the Boy is a little confused as to why he spends his afternoons cutting triangles, learning songs about Mr. M and having his questions about how the intercom system works go unanswered, although he enjoys that it all happens in such a bright and happy environment. He's asked, though, if we could find him another school for next year. "Maybe one that has more science." he suggests.
So. What to do? We're looking at private schools ($15K a year for first grade! and a first grade that's not really better than what we've got), magnet schools and homeschooling. Homeschooling seems to be the best answer, for us and for the Boy. We've essentially been homeschooling him from that moment we realized in the summer before he turned four that he was reading street signs and have continued to respond to his interests with all kinds of books, outings, experiments and activities. He has always responded well and enthusiastically to educational and informative stimuli wherever he finds it.
But man, homeschooling is coloring waaaaaay outside the lines. I have no fear of our ability to provide an excellent and thorough education for our children, none at all. I think, though, that homeschooling comes right up against my ability to do more or less what pleases me, sticks its toe on the line of not caring what people think and dissolving into tears over same and gives me a raspberry. It's one thing to choose a "love me, love my choices" sort of life for oneself but it's quite another to choose it for one's child.
You know, if the Boy Wonder were developing an enthusiasm for some unhealthy thing - a drug, maybe, or not eating enough, I'd move heaven and earth and spend every cent available to me to support him in healing. Why is it so hard to kick what I see as another unhealthy habit - this particular school and perhaps school in general - because it's "what people do". Why am I so afraid to be different about this, to take the plunge, to proclaim loud and proud "we are homeschoolers" when about so many other things in my life I do what I do with no thought or concern as to the general response?
Why is this different?
Entropy Girl was a dragon (me: Are you a nice dragon or a scary dragon? EG: I'm a TWO year old dragon!) and the Boy Wonder went as fireworks.
I decided last year that I would only commit to one time-intensive costume per year. This year was the Boy Wonder's year since he wanted to be fireworks and his sister didn't much care (although she's already announced that next year she will Trick-or-Treat as a puppy - a pink puppy. In a purse.) I wish we had his box all squared (ha!) away before snapping these shots because he really was darling. And he worked very hard on this - the idea was to paint a box that he'd wear hanging from his shoulders and then use gallons of glitter glue to put fireworks on all four sides. Then he wore a bunch of strands of those bendy wire foil star decorating things all twisted up as a kind of hat. Once he got the hang of walking inside the box he was quite happy with the effect.
The dragon came from last year's post-Halloween clearance from Target. And, really, what more could I possibly ask of a toddler's costume than to 1) fit over clothes, 2) eliminate the need of an additional coat and 2) be
In other news, pineapple has been procured and weekend time cleared. We just might end up with some pineapple lime jam before too long. The mother of one of the Boy's friends heard of the plan and said, "Oh, what a wonderful gift that would make!" and all I could think was gift, schmift, this stuff's gonna be for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)